What is is about calling the question that get moderators all lost and confused? Alex, who is the chair of the library board and a smart person, was not a good moderator of the town meeting yesterday. Everything took twice as long as it needed to and he got tripped up time and again on what was being voted on: the motion to limit debate, the admendment to the article, the article itself. The library article passed with almost unanimously and the town presented the spirit of america award to the library volunteers. I left not long after that and word is it became a shouting match later and they had to declare a time out.

What I have experienced about organizational structure is this: work gets done and decisions get made when there is an executive director paying daily attention to affairs, signing contracts, getting the work done; and a governerning board that approves the conduct of the director but does not micromanage. So, applying that to running a small town, we need to hire a town manager and expand the select board to 5 members for better representation. The select board would not be paid; they are a governing board not a working board.

Meanwhile back in happy library world where I meet a new person every 30 minutes, we did a 3-day star party event including some Galileo telescopes, an inflatable planetarium, and a Jamie Hogan reading.

They tore down the house but left the old boathouse standing. I would have thought the opposite would happen. I'm guessing they left the key unreconciled. Any excuse to go to Belfast and walk the bridge and streets without ice or mud.

Tech update alert: The charge port on my Pixel 4XL had pretty much died, so we had an adventure in Waterville and got new phones, the Pixel 7 Pro for me and the Pixel 7 for Melissa. Because it was close by we ate breakfast at Governor's. on a Sunday. with an all you can eat self-serve bar. Major error never to be repeated. While waiting for our data to move over to the new gadgets, we walked down to Bull Moose. I guess I hadn't been there since years ago when it was hippie/comic book/druggy/mildewy/smelly. Now it's cavernously huge and could be described as a media store, with records and DVDs but also used books, and other cool things. Now it's more like...a library. I bought Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang for ten bucks.

If I have a dream that happens in a festival, then my sleeping brain is creating the bands and all their music, the parade and all the float designs, and all the people in the crowd, right?

The best perk of being a library director is that I get to call the snow days. Looks like we may get one in the coming week. Just waiting it out to get to the next season, the one where I walk more and without cleats.

The Diversity in Unity group had a meeting at the library to plan some Pride events, and that got me to thinking about my tribal allegiances. My identity groups in order of importance would be women, Acadian exiles, the Woke Mob, gay people. My email signature pronouns are she/y'all/chere. It's important to me to be serious and totally non-serious at the same time, to relax because nothing matters and to work hard at things because it matters. Spotify pointed me to a 1969 recording of "World in Motion" by Pop Staples. You can hear Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne on it. The best lyrics:

Sun going down in the usa
Down on main there's a family sleeping in a doorway
Around the corner you can hear the sound
People dancing around the golden calf
Those who have not, those who have
On the billboards and the t.v. screens
They got food and cars and toys and trucks and jeans
Like a homeless child's fitfull dreams
Smiling faces free from wanting
Life's abundances beyond counting
World in motion -- speed your changes
Close your distances, find your angels
Lose your fears and meet your dangers
World in motion
Once we were running through smoke and fire
Running into the sun
In the rush of youth, for love and truth
Our deeds were done
Now we awake with a world at stake
And a race we run
We run
Sun going down on the usa
Sun coming up a hundred years away
On another world and another time
Things like hunger, greed and hatred
One way or another, gonna be eradicated
World in motion -- speed your changes
Close your distances, drive your angels
Lose your fears and meet your dangers
World in motion
'till the world I look out at this world and see
Is the world I know this world can be
You have a volunteer in me
Now come on

Markers: pre-Indictment; In the Dark